Monday, August 11, 2014

Thanks for hanging out with us today Maggie! Can you tell us 3 random things about yourself?

Every time we go out for ice cream, I get a peanut-butter cup flurry. 2. I love birds. I’m actually kind of a bird nut. My ring tone is “I like Birds.” 3. I’m a hermit. It takes a lot to get me to leave my home. I love it here. Bonus Random Thing 4: I’m a mystic and a witch. I meditate. I channel. I counsel. I cast and conjure. I read tarot cards and interpret signs in nature. I philosophize. I have frequent spiritual breakthroughs and “aha!” moments. And I am constantly seeking a deeper level of understanding about all things.

This is a question I LOVE to ask! If you could have a superpower, what would you want it to be and why?

I think I’d want to be able to fly at superhuman speeds, because then traveling wouldn’t be such a chore. I really don’t like being away from my home, my husband and my dogs. I don’t like it at all. I get terribly sad by the end of the third day on every trip. Even one to Disneyworld when the RWA convention was held there. That’s pretty bad, when you get depressed at Disneyworld. If I could just return home every night, no matter where in the world I had to be during the day, my life would be perfect. And because I anticipate it taking a while for that ability to manifest, I’m shopping around for a camper so I can travel and take home and family with me. Best of both worlds.

If we were to hop in your car or grab your MP3 player, what do you think we’d be likely to hear?

Stevie Nicks, above all else, but I have way more than 1000 songs. Music is a very important part of my life. I have a wide range too. James Taylor to Will Smith and Michael Jackson. Ray Lemontagne to India.Arie. Kina Grannis and Sheryl Crowe, Enya, Eva Cassidy, Godsmack and Metallica. Dolly Parton and Reba, and the Eagles. Cat Stevens and Corinne Bailey Rae and Colbie Caillat and a whole lot of stuff from Starhawk’s Reclaiming group and Dar Williams. It’s just a very wide range, and it also includes amazing Indie rockers Dead in Honduras, (my daughter’s dating the lead singer) and fabulous singer-songwriter Dan Hall who backs backs two of my book videos.

Ohhh I LOVE Stevie Nicks!!! Okay, here is a tough one! If your house was on fire, assuming everybody was safe and you could do it safely, what book from your collection would you want to save from the flames and why?

I have an indispensable book called ANIMAL SPEAK by Ted Andrews, that I can’t be without. It’s about animal totems and the messages they bring. I used it constantly. The animal kingdom and I are in very close touch. I love it so much I have two print copies, and e-versions on all my devices, just in case.

I actually did have a housefire in 2007 that gutted most of my house. My hundreds of books mostly did not burn, but they were terribly damaged from smoke and some water. The “experts” wanted to throw them out but I said no. They took them all, boxes and boxes and boxes of books, and put them in a room with something they called ozone. It took out a lot of smoke smell, not all of it. And I did lose some, but saved the vast majority of my collection. Thank goodness!

Can you tell us a little bit more about the characters of Twilight Guardians?

Killian is one of the loneliest people I’ve come across. He thinks he’s the only vampire left in the world, as this story opens after human/vampire wars have supposedly wiped them all out. He doesn’t know about a group of undead in hiding across the Atlantic. Charlie is a tragic case of a woman who learns she’s going to die very young, and suddenly realizes she has not yet lived. These two have so much to teach each other as we go along. Rhiannon, who can sometimes come off as a bit of a diva bitch, is brought to her knees by a little surprise in this book, (and Roland by a big one) and she and Roland enter a very new phase of a very old relationship.

Now that they have added the new sub-genre 'New Adult', are you considering this a ‘New Adult’ given Charlie’s age, or is it still following your adult Paranormal Romance structure?

I’ve never really geared my books for any particular age group. In the past, some of the vampires have been in their early twenties, but it never changed the way I wrote the story. While Charlie is my youngest romantic heroine yet, at 20, I don’t consider this a “New Adult” book. It’s a novel, period. Age is just a number and a good story is a good story.

I agree with you! What are you hoping readers will take away from reading Twilight Guardians?

My message is always some version of “Love is the strongest force in the Universe.” That’s the sermon I preach with every story, and it’s why I write in the genre I do. There are really only two motivations behind every act we undertake in life. Love and fear. Hate is just a manifestation of fear. If we can trust in love, and try always to make the decision that’s based on love, I think our lives would be happier and there would be peace on earth.

If you could spend the day with a character from the novel, with whom would you want to spend it, and what would you like to do?

Roxy, Charlie’s grandmother, and a beloved character as the oldest living member of The Chosen (humans with the Belladonna Antigen, and can, therefore, become vampires.) She’s a fascinating woman, smart as a whip, a rebel, a conspiracy theorist, a yogi, a computer hacker, and she rehabilitates wounded birds. She’s fascinating to me. I’d want to go bird watching with her. :)

Thank you very much again Maggie for stopping by and sharing a bit of yourself and your books with us today! Friends, scroll below to get to know Rhiannon a bit better, find out more about her stories and enter the awesome giveaway!!

WINGS IN THE NIGHT
WELCOME to the World of Wings in the Night! You may begin here…

I am the vampiress Rhiannon. I would like to tell you how I, and my stories, came to be. In 1991, before “paranormal romance” even existed, my authoress, Maggie Shayne wrote a vampire romance short story she called Twilight Phantasies and submitted it to several fiction magazines. One responded favorably, saying they loved the tale, but had a policy of only buying from their subscribers. So if she would kindly send them the hefty subscription fee, they’d be happy to make her an offer. Maggie was not yet a published author, but she was also not an idiot. (Had she been, I would not have chosen her to tell these tales I’ve been whispering into her brain for the past twenty years.) So she decided to just keep working and the story grew into a novel. In 1992, she submitted it to Silhouette Books’ brand new line called Shadows, a line that was far ahead of its time. It was very well received, but the editor asked her to do some revising. An offer could not be made until she did, because she was so new. The revisions were mainly about cutting back heavily on a secondary character, my beloved Roland de Courtemanche, and keeping the focus on the book’s main couple, Eric Marquand and Tamara Dey. I had every intention of paying the editor a midnight visit for this insult, until she said, “Don’t cut Roland’s scenes. Save them for the sequel. He needs a book of his own.” It was in that moment that the Wings in the Night Series was born, even though the author didn’t realize it at the time.

When the revisions were complete, Silhouette bought the novel for a four thousand dollar advance. Sadly, Shadows was doomed before it began. As I said, ahead of its time. The paranormal romance craze was only a seedling, just beginning to germinate, and nowhere near the phenomenon it would later become. The Shadows cover art had a comic or graphic novel look about it. It did not scream “romance fiction.” No matter. It is my belief that the line’s chief reason for existence was to help give birth to my stories. Once Wings in the Night began, even the line’s eventual demise could not stop it.

My authoress was on fire as I pried open her channels and continued pouring stories into her mind. She didn’t know where they were coming from back then. But it was an effort. When she first began my story, I was drawn as the villainess of the piece, and some weak and pathetic mortal female was supposed to be Roland’s mate! I schooled myself to patience. My authoress was just learning, after all. She did not yet understand who I was.

Trust me when I tell you, she does now.

Twilight Memories, my story, was published next, in 1994. You’ll have to pardon the blue eye shadow. It was the nineties, after all. I did finally get through to my authoress. In fact, I opened the lines of communication so widely, that I dictated the opening of the story. Those first four pages marked “Introduction” truly were my introduction to my authoress. I was speaking to her, telling her who and what I am, warning her that I am no one to be trifled with.

She merely wrote down what I said. And I’ve been dictating the stories of my people to her ever since.

One more novel, Twilight Illusions, featuring the magician Damien Namtar (formerly known as King Gilgamesh of Ancient Sumer) and his fledgling Shannon, was published under the Silhouette Shadows line. Damien is our link to our origins, a link that continues to unfurl all the way through Book 20 of the series. But I digress.

After this book was published, Silhouette Shadows closed down. My authoress received two messages. One from her publisher, telling her there would be no more Wings in the Night. The second was from me, telling her to begin the next book right away. She listened to me, and wrote Born in Twilight over the next eight weeks. Flat.

Shadows died. Silhouette was absorbed by Harlequin. Harlequin has been purchased by Rupert Murdoch. But Wings in the Night lived through it all, and still lives on.

My authoress has taken my advice and broken free of all of them. She will no longer allow fat, rich, mortal men to become fatter and richer from the fruits of her labor, but rather, will continue to share her gift and my voice directly with you. This also means my contact with you will be far less diluted. Less filtered. More like…a direct current.

A brand new incarnation of the series begins this year with Wings in the Night: Reborn Book One, TWILIGHT GUARDIANS will be a September 1, 2014 release in both print and electronic formats, from Maggie’s own label, Thunderfoot. And for those of you who missed the first 20 books, this is a fresh start. You may begin here….

~Rhiannon

Twilight Guardians

(WINGS IN THE NIGHT: REBORN, Book 1)

By Maggie Shayne

Blurb:

They told 20-year-old Charlie O’Malley that they had a cure for the rare blood condition that would eventually kill her–an untested, experimental cure. All they wanted in return was for her to join their elite military team and train to kill the Undead.

She took the deal, not because she cared so much about extending her life, but because it would make her strong–stronger than ordinary humans. Strong enough to kill the vampire who’d pretended to love her, taken her blood, used her body, and murdered her mother.

Killion was the last of his kind, or so he thought. When he found Charlie, he felt the pull. She had the rare Belladonna Antigen all vampires had as humans. Vampires were compelled to protect those rare mortals they called The Chosen. But with Charlie, the bond was different, more powerful than anything he’s felt before, and impossible to resist, even though surrendering to it will probably get him killed.

Ancient vampire elders Rhiannon and Roland come out of exile, risking their lives to help their mortal friend Roxy reclaim her granddaughter. But before the tale ends, their lives will be forever changed.

Join Maggie Shayne as she returns to her most beloved series of all time with this new beginning….

Maggie Shayne is best known as the New York Times bestselling author of more than 50 novels, nearly 30 novellas, a former soap writer, (The Guiding Light, As the World Turns,) a former advice columnist (Shayne on You,) and RITA Award winner. But what’s less known about her is that she’s been a practicing Witch for almost as long as she’s been a published author.

Known within the Craft of the Wise as LadyHawk the Mythmaker, Maggie studied in the Black Forest Circle Seminary for three years, earning her 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree elevations there. A licensed minister of Wicca, Maggie was later made a Craft Elder, and co-founded a new Wiccan tradition called RavenMyst Circle. Her coven, The Coven of the Redtail Hawk, turned out five new high priestesses, several of whom went on to form covens of their own, and making Maggie, according to the Old Ways, A Witch Queen.

Maggie has published westerns, category romances, romantic suspense, paranormal romances, urban fantasy, women's fiction, and just about everything in between. She's a winner of the RITA Award, the romance fiction industry's most prestigious prize, and has won countless others including several RT BOOK RREVIEWS "Reviewer's Choice" Awards, two RT Career Achievement Awards, the Daphne du Maurier Award, The Golden Leaf Award and numerous others.

Maggie's "Twilight" series of vampire novels, officially known as Wings in the Night, began in 1993 with TWILIGHT PHANTASIES from Silhouette Shadows. The series concluded with TWILIGHT FULFILLED in October 2011, but has come back to life now that she has gone indie.

My love for reading started in the 90 and I'm glad this was brought to my attention bcuz I never paid any attention to names or authors back then. It will be awesome to read what I liked back in the day ;)

I'm starting to wonder if I am losing my "OMG I LOVE MAGGIE" fangirl card, because with each interview I am learning so much... haha Or.. is it that Maggie is growing and changing? I'm going with that. <3 LOVE THIS!